[Wolverine Studios] DDS: Pro Basketball 2016 Dev Diary #3 – A New (Old) Era Dawns

GM Games · February 15, 2016

1976 was a milestone year in professional basketball as the ABA merged with the NBA, bringing four new teams to the NBA, and eventually, innovations such as the 3 point shot and the slam dunk contest. This makes it an ideal starting point for you to play our most anticipated new mode in DDS: Pro Basketball 2016 – Historical Play.

Quite the season for one of the all-time greats

The Historical Play feature lets you take on one of the 22 franchises that existed in 1976 and play on from there. If you long for the glory days of pro basketball, this feature is for you. Relive seeing your favorite old players and watch their careers play out. Even better, you have the power to change the course of history for your favorite squad, and watch all kinds of what-ifs play out. For example in this simulation, Houston was content to have a less than stellar season. Their reward? The number one overall pick in the 1978 Draft. In real life, Portland drafted Mychal Thompson. In this universe, Houston decided the smart pick was some kid named Larry Bird out of Indiana State. Wonder if he’ll turn out to be any good.

A no brainer with the top choice

Our most recent test simulation had its own intrigue. Dr. J jumped ship to Cleveland as a free agent, leaving Philadelphia in quite the hole for 1978. Side note: When you begin replay mode, contract values are assigned, but with random contract lengths so you’ll get a new experience each time you start a historical replay. To keep things simple, we’ve kept the modern financial system in place for historical replay.

Back to our results. Unsurprisingly, Philly did not fare well and managed to score the top pick in the 1979 draft, where they decided on a little bit of Magic to replace the Doctor. Could you imagine if Dr. J hadn’t decided to leave, but instead was hurt the next season, leaving Philly still in prime position for the top pick. Magic and the Doctor? What a combo that could have been – provided of course the 76ers made the right strategy fit. Ironically, just a month into the season, Magic tore his ACL, leaving the door wide open for Bill Laimbeer (drafted by Atlanta) to win ROY honors.

Time to expand

Of course, 1976 was not the only year the league grew in size. In fact, the league has expanded five times since then, and your league can do so as well. You’ll be prompted prior to the 1980, 1988, 1989, 1995 and 2004 seasons to expand, matching the real-life NBA’s expansions. Don’t want to expand then? You don’t have to. What’s more, just as in the last version of DDS:PB, you can expand the league at any time you want, up to 32 teams. The game will generate the real-life franchises (you can change this yourself, of course), realign your league correctly, and run an expansion draft complete with player protection every time you expand. With this newest addition to the DDS: Pro Basketball series, you not only have control of the future, but the past as well!